


Fated Ch. 1

by The_Word_Witch



Series: Fated [2]
Category: Bucky Barnes - Fandom, Greek and Roman Mythology, Marvel (Comics), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Greek Mythology, Alternate Universe - Hades and Persephone Mythology Fusion, Alternate Universe - Marvel Cinematic Universe Fusion, Bucky Barnes - Freeform, Bucky Barnes Feels, Eventual Relationships, Eventual Romance, Eventual Smut, F/M, Greek Mythology - Freeform, Marvel Universe, The Winter Soldier - Freeform, Winter Soldier Bucky Barnes, hades bucky barnes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-21
Updated: 2019-01-21
Packaged: 2019-10-13 17:20:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,842
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17492084
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Word_Witch/pseuds/The_Word_Witch
Summary: Pairing:Hades!Bucky x Persephone!ReaderSummary:Humanity has broken the world. How they did it doesn’t matter. What does is that in doing so they quickened the old gods once more.A century later things are settling into a new order. Hades, having taken the modern name of James, continues to begrudgingly fulfill his duties as an agent of Death in this realm. Until he meets you. Will he continue his eons-long sacrifice and serve Death or risk the delicate balance of the realm to be by your side?





	Fated Ch. 1

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings:  
> Blood, death, violence
> 
> A/N:  
> I am SO sorry this took a while to get to y’all! I was genuinely amazed at how much love the prologue got. Because of that I was petrified to let anyone down with this first chapter and was trying to rush some stuff. It just wasn’t working so I was spinning my wheels for weeks. Ultimately I just went with my gut and this came out. If you’ve read anything I’ve written you’ll know I like a good build up, so be patient these two will meet very soon. 
> 
> I hope y’all like this one!

You watch the sunrise over the courtyard from the roof of the main dorm building. The cool morning breeze lifts some of the curls from your shoulders and you shiver just a touch at the caress. Fleetingly you think of strong fingers doing the same, how good it would feel…

Off to your left one of the rooster's crow from the livestock section. Everything would slowly awake now, interrupting your quiet reprieve. You loved the women here, really you did. But there were times you dreamed of just being able to be alone. No one asking anything of you, no one calling for aid, just… being. Gods had duties though. Mother always made that clear to you. The price they paid for their seeming immortality and power. Service.

The other gods seemed to attain some kind of satisfaction from the service they provided to humans though. You never truly felt that though, going through the motions day after day always feeling like you were missing something. Sighing you stand on the edge of the roof and jump the few stories to the ground below. Another day. Like hundreds before it.

You hate this feeling of dissatisfaction that’s been growing since Danielle’s death. Her son had been sent off to the nearest House of Ares yesterday. Just five days old.

Logically you knew he would be loved and cared for, they all were. But he would also be trained to be a warrior. A life filled with training and combat and… death. The beginning and ending of all things.

It didn’t matter. Shoving your hands in the pockets of your long skirt you pass through the garden, too scared to touch anything since the apple incident. You’d even been avoiding your duties in the lab and greenhouse. Secluding yourself every moment you could. If that had happened around Mother… What exactly would she have done? What could she have done? Maybe it was normal, just some odd misdirected surge of energy… no. You knew to your marrow that wasn’t it.

“Daughter,” Mother’s voice reaches you as you turn out of the garden toward the vegetable plots. Damn.

She’s shrouded in a faint mist of power as she stands in a recently tilled plot, at her command, the freshly planted tomatoes grow up their stakes, green fruit already swelling. Life throbs around her in thick ropes of bright light. It’s beautiful. Always beautiful. Just like the other night though you smell the rot in the ground, the necessary decay to allow life to thrive…

“Morning, Mother.”

“Come,” she extends a perfectly sculpted hand to you. Another time you would have happily taken her invitation. Thrilled at the chance to create new life from, seemingly, nothing. Now you stare at it. Unable to allow yourself.

“Kore. Come,” this time it’s less a request and more an order. The shift in her tone and demeanor clear.

She is your Mother but also your superior. Honor bound to obey, your feet move without consulting your own desires and your hand clasps hers. You hate this. Hate your lack of will.

“I haven’t seen much of you these past days. You seem troubled my child,” the space between your hand's prickles with static instead of flowing with mutual power. Rather than answer you try to focus on letting the life flow through you.

“It’s nothing, Mother.”

Her grip tightens, “Look at me, darling.” You do as she asks, not because it’s a command but because of the tenderness in her tone. “I know it is hard to see them suffer. You believe it is unfair that their fate should be so fragile while we remain.”

It wasn’t all of it. Hardly scratched the surface. But you supposed it was close enough. The humans were fragile, nothing you could do for them would alter that.

“All young gods feel this pain. We continue on as they fade. But this sorrow is for someone else to bear my child.” Your eyes narrow. “We all have a place in this world. For some it’s to shelter knowledge, others to cultivate beauty, love, war. We are blessed to have been gifted with the task of nurturing life.”

The same old story. You’re not in the mood for it. Looking away you attempt to pull from her grasp, instead, she tightens her grasp on your hand, so tight it almost hurts. You glare back at her.

“Do not think I don’t notice the coins you slip them, daughter. Or how you linger as they leave our realm of responsibility.” A darkness slips behind your Mother’s eyes that you don’t know you’ve ever seen before. “It’s normal for one young as you to forget her place. However, you stray too far from the path my child. This world is in a new age, we must shepherd it. Each guiding the sheep they are given, nothing more.” Silence hangs.

“Do you understand what I’m telling you, Kore? I have allowed you these follies and morose moods for some time. No more.” Her free hand gestures to the other plots, flinging a wave of power causing the plants to perk up, their crops swelling a bit at the goddesses' gift. “We shepherd life.” She releases you and steps away, her look, bidding you to finish making the crop grow.

Taking a deep breath you focus on the life. Low panic thrumming in the back of your mind but you do your best to ignore it. Life. She wants to see you do this. You must do this. The same light that flowed from her streams from you. It curls down into the soil to the roots of the plants, thrumming up the fragile stalks and filling the fruit, willing it to thrive.

“Beautiful, Kore. Beautiful.” Your eyes open and she is beaming at you. “We are blessed among the gods my darling. Be thankful.”

“Yes, Mother.” You don’t trust your own tongue to say anything else. There’s a tremor working it’s way up your spine. Deep in your gut, something hurts, aches so deep you think you may scream. Still, you force a smile.

Mother nods and begins to walk away. “I expect you in the lab in an hour, Kore.” With that, she turns, heading toward the greenhouse on the other side of the dorm.

As soon as she’s out of sight you drop to your knees and plunge your shaking hands into the soil. _What is this?!_ Your panicked mind is spinning. Hands digging in the dark soil of their own volition, desperately. For what?

A voice in the back of your head whispers, “ _Give it to me.”_ And another wave of panic crashes into you. Have you ever felt this before? Felt this horror? This… fear? No. You couldn’t remember ever knowing fear before…

“Stop,” you say, speaking to your own body. “Please stop,” you hiss trying not to scream as you hands shovel dirt and rocks, reaching into the earth.

Closing your eyes you try to focus on the light of the life around you, this is what you were made for after all. Mother had just said it. Shepherding life. Maybe if you focused on that you could get control of your body.

It pulses around you, all these tendrils of life from the new little tomato plants. Then… just like with the apple they begin to snap. The life flowing like Ichor hot and bright out of them back into the ground.

The shock of it makes your hands stop. They cover your mouth, holding the scream in. Trembling you sit back on your ankles and stare at the dead tomato plants surrounding you, falling to dust.

Frantically you look around. Desperately hoping no one has just seen you. A bit of the panic recedes when you realize you’re alone. Just as you breathe you see the sway of skirts in the shadow cast by the dorm. Maybe it was a trick of the light but you could have sworn there was a woman there, a hood covering her face.

You bolt toward the woman. Intending to beg her silence. When you arrive on the spot there’s nothing.

A strange laugh slips from your lips as you lean into the wall. Your heart is thundering, veins glowing golden as the Ichor pumps quickly through your body.

Could gods go mad? You had seen humans suffer from it. Seeing things that weren’t there, their fragile minds breaking down. The thought fills you once more with fear, this strange new emotion. But there’s something else just beneath it, something you haven’t felt in such a long time. Excitement.

-

The bike roars between James’ thighs. His brother’s mocked this primitive mode of transportation, preferring to travel in more… _godly_ ways such as just appearing or taking to the sky. James preferred sticking close to the ground, plus he liked the time alone it afforded him.

This was his favorite bike. Anthony may have mocked him but he couldn’t resist a project. The clunky Harley had been reworked, powered by one of his brothers lightening arc batteries, fitted in such a way to maintain the thunderous sound, Anthony appreciated loud things after all. The color? Bright white.

When he’d originally scoffed at the choice Anthony told him, “ _There’s some modern human myth about death riding a white horse and if you insist on getting around like a mortal you may as well make a statement.”_ That was his brother for you _._

Despite it being his less than favorite color he loved how it rode, sailing over broken and brittle roadways like they were nothing. Passing through ghost town after ghost town in a flash.

His destination was just outside what was once Minneapolis. Unlike many cities in the wasteland that was the midwestern United States, those close to the Great Lakes had survived… enough.

At the very least they were healing faster than other regions. In another hundred or so years they would bear little scars of the cataclysm that brought the gods here. For now, though they sustained life better than most. That also meant they were hotbeds of unrest.

Humans were pack animals, after all, all vying for their own slice of what was left of the habitable land on the continent. Because of this, the region was riddled with war. Each faction with their Children of Ares and Athena taking the front lines. Every battle bloody until one faction was left shattered. To the winner the spoils.

While the gods usually let the humans sort themselves out when one of their own got involved… well, it was best someone take care of it… quickly. Demi-gods who didn’t understand their place could plant distrust in the humans. Distrust could lead to an uprising, and no one had the time for that. Not to mention the more followers these half breed gods attained, the stronger they became. That benefitted no one.

He can just see the encampment on the horizon. They had been here for a while. Tents and ramshackle homes spreading out for about a mile until they hit the 20-foot walls. At a glance, they seemed to be your standard shoddy defense walls most of these settlements managed to cobble together if they lasted long enough, mainly corrugated metal and barbed wire. As he gets closer though James can see turrets, advanced for these parts, at the top. Tendrils of electricity snake up the metal encasing the wall here and there, interesting-

A blast slams into the tarmac directly in front of his bike. James reacts in an instant jerking the bike to the left, using his metal arm to steady the skid, just barely missing disaster. The bike stops and he looks back. The ground is molten hot, steaming as it cools. He sighs, this wasn’t a good sign.

“Impressive isn’t it?” A voice bellows from the direction of the wall. He turns back to see a large man, long golden strawberry hair pulled on top of his head, shoulders incredibly broad, arms like a… blacksmith. “I may not know my father but I seem to have inherited his affinity for weapons.” James feels his chest tighten. Heph was his favorite nephew, he loved him like a son, how could he be so reckless… like his father. _Damnit._

James holds his hands up, allowing his great-nephew and the horde of people behind him to approach and surround him. As he looks at this nephew he can see bits of Hephaestus there. The eyes, the set of the shoulders, but the swagger and pompous smile makes him think of the boy’s grandfather. His blood boils. Steven may have been honest about being too busy to handle this one but Anthony… he knew exactly who’s child this was. Bastard.

“Struck speechless? I do seem to have that effect,” the crowd snickers a little in response. Very much like his grandfather.

“So, who the hell are you supposed to be?” James’ eyebrows raise at this. He studies the boy for a sign of dishonesty but he genuinely seems to not know or realize. A woman standing to the back right of the boy glances at him in shock before looking back to James, concern darkening her features.

“Why don’t you ask your friend there,” James gestures to the woman, “she seems to know exactly who I am.” She takes a half step back as the boy turns to her.

“Nate,” she hisses, “That’s the Winter fucking Soldier.” James winces at the title.

When the gods awoke it was to an earth in the grip of a monstrous man-made winter. Discombobulated and confused they lashed out at the humans and each other. No one really remembered what sparked their fight but it only lasted a few weeks before they seemed to get a hold of themselves, remembering who and what they were. It was a haze in James’ mind. Once in control of themselves, they ended the winter that had encapsulated the earth. Now it had been nearly a century and the only thing to bring cold to a land of perpetual spring was death. Hence the human’s title for him.

The boy looks back to James, his freckled face filled with rage and shadows. “I prefer James. Hades will also do in a pinch.” Nate sneers, “Are you the leader of these people, Nate?”

“He is our king!” A man to the back left of Nate bellows, taking a confident step forward, “And you should approach him with respect.” The man places himself between James and Nate, chin up, stance defiant. James can’t help the small smile that rises to his face.

“Ah,” he slips out of the leather jacket he wore and tosses it over the bike. The sun catches the gold banding on his left arm. “Tell me, since you’re so well versed in the matter, how should one _king_ address another?” James grips the man’s chin in his left hand, staring intently into his eyes. Fear fills them. Staring at death was unsettling to all humans. The man whimpers and the acrid smell of piss fills his nose. “I think that’s the wrong answer.” He flings the man to the left, unharmed save for his pride.

“Do you have a place we can talk?” James has no interest in harming this boy. If he can rectify this situation without violence he will. “This doesn’t need to be a fight.”

Nate glances to the man and back to James, “I always thought you’d be bigger. Now here you are and I gotta say, it’s kind of underwhelming.” James shrugs, not taking the bait, secretly amused at the thought of what Anthony would have done had the boy said that to him.

Scratching his chin Nate looks around to his people. “Oh well,” he reaches back and plucks what seems to be an empty hilt from his waistband. With a flick a blade about two feet long unfurls and locks into place, blue tendrils of energy pulsing up it.

He roars as he takes a swing at James. Sighing, James catches the blade in his left hand, the sound of metal on metal grating. He looks at the impressive weapon, wondering where the boy was able to craft something like this.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” James says looking at his great nephew. The boy simply pulls back and takes a warrior’s stance. The crowd around them has spread out but boldly looks on. He lunges once again and James deflects, “Please, we can discuss-”

“I have nothing to say to someone like you!” Nate bellows as another blow pings off James’ arm.

His brows knit. Grabbing the blade and brings his opponent close. Growling he says, “You know nothing of me _boy_.” He bashes his head into his nose.

Nate stumbles back clutching at his bloody broken nose. He straightens leveling a glare at James, “I am no boy! I’m a man of some 90 years. I’ve watched as you so-called _gods,_ build your new Olympus,” he spits blood from his mouth, wiping at the gold-tinged red coating his face. “Feigning benevolence while you feed off humanity like leaches!”

“And you think you’re better than us?” James gestures to the people surrounding them, “You think that the love of _your_ people doesn’t make the Ichor sing in your veins, boy?!” There’s a flicker of doubt across his face and a murmur in the crowd. “Didn’t think that through did you?”

“Is that true, Nathaniel?” The woman from earlier asks, her face filled with betrayal.

“I…” Nathaniel’s mouth gapes.

“It doesn’t take a smart man to see what isn’t hidden.” James approaches him slowly, “We need humanity as they need us. We never deny that.” He can practically smell the doubt in the air, a touch of the gold seems to drain from Nathaniel’s hair. How quickly human faith can sway.

Once again James raises his hands, “Now, please, let’s talk. There’s no need for this to end poorly.”

Nathaniel lunges at him and he simply spins, kicking a leg out, sending the boy tumbling to the ground. The blade falls out of his hand but he crouches and runs for James. A well placed right hook makes Nathaniel stagger back, spitting more blood.

The woman runs to his side, “Just talk to him, darling, please.”

“No!” Nathaniel bellows pushing her roughly back. “I’ve been waiting my whole life for this.” He reaches under his shirt, pulling out what looks sort of like a gun. It’s red and gold and… _Sweet Gaia._ Glowing and lashing at the mouth of the barrel is lightening… Anthony’s lightning, the kind Heph uses to craft.

The shock catches James off guard. With a crack like thunder, a bolt shoots toward him. He’s almost too slow, instead of ripping a hole through his middle it tears a gash in his side.

Hitting the ground he groans, gold Ichor seeps thick and glowing from the wound, soaking into the black tee he wore and down into the dark denim. Nathaniel bellows a laugh, drunk with the power pulsing from the weapon.

“See!” He calls to his people, “I told you, the gods bleed just like men!”

“Please, don’t do this,” James feels his patience waiver.

“They even beg like them!” The boy’s eyes are wild.

“I don’t want-“ He hears the rumble of thunder. Before another bolt tears toward him, he lunges for the boy. Nathaniel moves, attempting to redirect the bolt. His grip on the gun falters, the energy pulses, as it falls from his hand it spins back on him, blasting a devastating wound through his left side.

Once the flash of light dims screams fill the air. Nathaniel hits his knees looking in shock to his left side. James swallows hard, remembering a similar wound, his left-hand flexes. Catching the boy before he falls face first to the ground he guides him to his back. His eyes are filled with tears, mouth opening and closing like a fish, shock overtaking him.

Blood pours from him, red and dark with strands of gold spinning in the pool. This wasn’t a wound a mortal survived and no matter how long-lived Nathaniel was he was… mortal.

“I’m sorry,” James says softly looking down. “You have nothing to fear Nathaniel. You fought bravely,” if not stupidly, but now wasn’t the time. He reaches into his pocket plucking an old worn gold coin from it and slipping it into the boy’s only remaining hand. “So the ferryman knows who sent you.” With that Nathaniel takes his last breath, his body, free of the Ichor that had given it such long-lived vigor shrivels.

James plucks the gun from the ground and stands slowly, clutching his side. The people are huddled together close to the gate, some sobbing, some in shock. The woman approaches tentatively, staring horrified at the wrinkled corpse before her. She doesn’t tremble though, in fact, he’s impressed by her strength. After a moment her hand rises to her mouth to catch a sob or a scream. James grabs her wrist she swallows the emotion looking up at him, defiant.

“Don’t let them see you break,” he looks over her shoulder. “Your people need you. They will need your strength once word gets around that you’ve lost him.” Her knowing eyes bore into his own. Women never feared death the same as men.

“I didn’t want this,” he doesn’t know why but it matters to him that she knows.

She glances to her fallen love then back to James, “I know.” He nods.

Releasing her he walks toward the people who seem to collectively tremble at the approach of a god of Death, “Let this be a day you remember,” his voice booms with the force only a god can produce. He gestures back to the corpse, “Death came here, and came with mercy. Hubris caused this, not The Winter Soldier,” he spits the title. “Remember, and don’t make the same mistakes.”

The woman has come up to his side, “What’s your name doll?” He asks in a normal tone.

“Adelaide,” she says straightening her back.

He looks back to the crowd, “This woman, Adelaide, will lead you forward. You will need to band together if you plan to survive.” Without another word he turns and strides back to his bike, grabbing the jacket. He doesn’t notice the hooded woman who fades away in the crowd.

He stares at the bike. Anthony knew… he knew whose son this was and he wasn’t certain he didn’t know or even give him a god-killing weapon… Disgust fills his mouth. With a roar he punches his left fist through the battery, rendering the machine useless, and stalk’s forward the earth opening at his call.

As he strides into his realm, clutching at the still bleeding wound in his side, all he can think about is blowing his youngest brother’s head off his body. Rage is something he hasn’t felt in quite some time. He has to admit, it’s a touch invigorating.


End file.
